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Bloom County Complete Library Volume 1 (Library of American Comics) |  | Author: Berkeley Breathed
Publisher: Idea & Design Works Llc
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $24.02
as of 11/22/2009 17:27 MST details
You Save: $15.97 (40%)
New (29) Used (6) Collectible (1) from $24.02
Seller: AesqueInk
Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 935
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.1
Dimensions (in): 11.1 x 8.6 x 1.2
ISBN: 1600105319
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9781600105319
ASIN: 1600105319
Publication Date: October 6, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Berkley Breathed's Bloom County was one of the most popular and critically acclaimed newspaper strips of all time. Bloom County ran from December 8th, 1980 to August 6th, 1989 and was published in an astounding 1200 newspapers on a daily basis. The huge popularity of Bloom County spawned a merchandizing bonanza, as well as two spin-off strips, Outland and Opus. The Bloom County Library Volume 1 highlights the first time the entire run of the immensely popular Bloom County strip has been collected in beautifully designed hard cover books with exceptional reproduction.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
 Wonderful November 7, 2009
Opus Fan (Deming, NM)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Any Bloom County fan will absolutely love this book. I am looking forward to all of the rest to complete my library.
Bloom County - still the best November 7, 2009
Cliff Kline (Goleta, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I first saw Bloom County in the 80s, I was astounded that a comic like this was being published. Now over 20 years later it makes me smile when I reread the strips.
This Collection Doesn't Seem Dated in the Slightest November 2, 2009
Bookreporter.com (New York, New York)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
December 8, 1980, is perhaps most remembered for one terrible event: The murder of John Lennon on the sidewalk in front of his home building in New York City. That singular event, the death of one of the greatest pop musicians of all time and the harbinger of the ending of a generation, coincided with something else in the newspaper that day, something that would wind up defining the new generation to come: Bloom County, a small strip with seemingly small ambitions, debuted.
That first strip probably wouldn't be too memorable if it weren't included here, in BLOOM COUNTY: THE COMPLETE LIBRARY, Volume One: 1980-1982, the first of five volumes that will collect the entire catalogue of the legendary comic strip. It wasn't until later --- January 28, 1982, to be exact --- that the strip would begin to fully congeal into the great source of humor, commentary, political awareness and astute observations that it became known for. Berkeley Breathed, the creator of the series, writes in the margins next to that day's strip, "Opus. Center found, the fog clearing. The strip had found its voice, its tone and its point of view."
The introduction of Opus the penguin was the glue the strip needed to hold its world together. With that, Breathed was able to embark on an ingenious journey across the decade. Along with the other stars of the strip --- Milo, the erstwhile reporter; Binkley, the celebrity-obsessed neurotic; Steve Dallas, the conservative lawyer; Cutter John, the stoic Vietnam vet; Bill the Cat, the frenzied, harried rock star; and the assorted rest --- he set out to interpret the wild world of the '80s for us all. And he succeeded. The Bloom County filter made the world make more sense somehow.
The brilliance of Bloom County shines through in so many ways, but perhaps most notable is that this collection doesn't seem dated in the slightest (oh, perhaps a strip here and there, but you'd really have to nitpick to mind, and anyway, Breathed has included several helpful spreads offering headlines from the times to help you get yourself firmly rooted back in the day).
Can you go back home to a comic strip and a time that have both signed off so very long ago? In small ways, yes. The handsome BLOOM COUNTY: THE COMPLETE LIBRARY makes the trip not only possible in some measures, but it also makes it a pure joy. Brilliance like Bloom County elevated the art form of the comic strip. It's wonderful to see it getting such respect.
--- Reviewed by John Hogan
WIth Calvin the brightest light from our darkest age October 28, 2009
C. Scanlon (among us humans)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Complaining about print quality here makes no sense to me. What kind of print quality did we read these with over a quarter century ago on pulpy newspaper? In any case, I can discern absolutely no loss of quality in the reproduction; they look fine to me.
Certainly I would have preferred a larger format, but again, this represents how they were published in most papers originally, which is why Watterston held out for Calvin, imposing sizes unseen since the Thirties Golden age. See his poorly bound The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Calvin & Hobbes) (v. 1, 2, 3).
I can only see one very bizarre printing, and that is the end of the bear costume episode with Limekiller, which really seems inked by an amateur with a heavy Paper Mate Flair Tip-Guard Medium Tip Felt Porous Pens, 2 Black Pens(8432452PP) on a late night flight after three martinis. The rest of the strips are delicately lined and inked. The sight of those female legs upon that wheel-chaired lap are to die for, and the work of as real a draftsmen as Rembrandt: Master of the Portrait (Discoveries).
It is the content after all we read these for. The reference to a hospital bill at eleven thousand dollars reads true today, although the bill should be multiplied by ten at least. It is this kind of biting political comment we love him for, although he admittedly in the liner notes made compromises from the beginning. See his early college strips for what lies beneath.
This is my only complaint. The first time I read this was in a dimmer light, and those several liner notes are printed in a tiny font in a light color against similarly toned background. This is not a problem as most of those liner notes are not by BB and are useless. The ones by BB himself are mildly interesting, however, as long as you realize both in these notes and in his foreword he is having us on; he is joking like Buck Mulligan in Ulysses (Gabler Edition); he is ironic and just plain lying to amuse himself. Dudes, he is a comic, and a comic strip writer. The liner notes not by BB himself are rather odd; often they identify people and events well known to everyone, in the most general and thus erroneous way, and absolutely ignore items and references and people far more obscure and unknown. We could very well have done without these intermittent liner notes so difficult to read due to the font and its color; if something unknown comes up, we can look it up on wikipedia, but most often the humor is independent of such cultural background in any case!
It is very interesting to read the few selections from his college strip which got him started. Even though he claims (jokingly?) never to have read any other comic strip than Doonesbury, the earliest of these strips resemble strongly Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips (1956-1966).
Worth reading again for the memories of over a quarter century ago, this bright and consoling beacon in our darkest days of doom. Worth reading for the reflections it brings upon our present zeitgeist, and reading again and again. Unlike the Watterston complete collection, it endures repeated readings, a true hardcover work, not poorly glued like Watterston. But be sure to sign up now to receive Bloom County: Complete Library Volume 2 in early 2010, as the saga continues. I love this first volume to see how the strip might have developed, with the promising interplay amongst the residents of the boarding house. The Russian disappears with much humor that might have been; the cigar smoking dog, who was to be the main figure, disappears altogether (was it the nicotine addiction?) without a trace, as if Calvin lost Hobbes and never mentioned it. Limekiller, what, gets killed? By Gary Trudeau? and then the evolution of that complex Binckley . . . the one who so concerns his poor father, who first acquires a pet penguin, svelte, with small beak and reasonable sized eyes, that early penguin who comes and reappears six months later, quietly staring out pleadingly at the reader for an explanation of the oddities all around . . .
Get this, and prepare for volume two. It is well worth your while within this present gathering darkness . . .
The Evolution of a Comic Strip (Primordial Version) October 24, 2009
Timothy P. Young (Rawlins, WY, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Bloom County Complete Library is something I've been waiting for for a long time, and I wasn't disappointed. We get every strip for the first two years of its run (plus several pages of Berke Breathed's college strip, The Academia Waltz, notable for introducing both Steve Dallas and Cutter John). The quality is consistently high (regardless of what other reviews have said), and the occasional notes by Breathed about individual strips or storylines combine a running commentary on the evolution of one of the best topical strips of any era.
The author and editors also thoughtfully supply a few pages of headlines from the era, scattered throughout the book, to better give the reader a sense of the current events of the time. Those, combined with the aforementioned commentaries, create more than enough reason for the longtime fan to buy this book.
So why should anyone else buy it? One simple reason--I have never seen a collection that better shows the development of a comic strip. Lots of the greats, like Calvin and Hobbes, reached our comic pages nearly full-blown, with all the major elements in place. Bloom County didn't do this, and it's fascinating to read the first two years of the strip, to see older characters phased out as others are phased in (most notably Binkley, Opus, and Bill). It's also highly interesting watching Breathed find his footing as a long-term cartoonist, tweaking his formula, shaping his world. Over the course of these pages, he does just that.
It's not unusual for an author to deepen the world he or she has created in subsequent books (think Tolkein, from THE HOBBIT - or There and Back Again to The Lord of the Rings: 50th Anniversary, One Vol. Edition, or C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, or the world of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe), but it's rare to find an example of this type of evolution spread out over the daily comic pages.
The Complete Bloom County Volume One is such an example. It's fascinating, often funny, and definitely worth owning.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
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